


Mental Stress

by gollymissmolly



Category: The Dresden Files - All Media Types, The Dresden Files - Jim Butcher
Genre: ghost story spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-26
Updated: 2014-09-26
Packaged: 2018-02-18 20:16:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2360909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gollymissmolly/pseuds/gollymissmolly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Molly helps Harry arrange his own death.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mental Stress

"What are you doing?"

"I’m putting these things away, Harry." 

"You can’t do that. You can’t _do_ that, Molly. That’s my _head_ you’re messing with and you can’t _do_ that.”

She sighed, picked another heavy black file box up off of the stack of ten or more and lifted it up above her head with a grunt of exertion to put it neatly into a wall safe. There were two other file boxes already stacked inside, unlabeled and taped shut.

"You asked me to, Harry." She reminded him once her hands were no longer full, and glanced at him over her shoulder before stooping for another full box. 

He was right. This version of him did dress better, but Harry’s subconscious was definitely a _jerk_. There were only two beacons of light in the entire black space, not unlike being on stage with spotlights on both main characters. 

“ _I_ didn’t ask you to.” Id!Harry reiterated for the thousandth time, “ _He_ did. Look, I’m the one that keeps us _alive_. Running fast, fighting back, having sex— this is what I’m _here_ for. Do you know what kind of decisions that guy would make without me? Really shitty ones that would get us killed.”

Molly didn’t interject, she just lifted the next box, hefted it up onto her shoulder, and pushed it into the safe. 

"Decisions like _this_ one. He’s going to _kill_ us, Molly.” 

She swallowed, thickly- although she knew it was impossible giving that she wasn’t even in her physical body- and went for another box. ”That’s the idea.”

"You’re just going to let him? You’re going to _help_ him?!”

She hesitated, but not for long, and lifted the next box, slamming it home into the safe with more force than was strictly necessary, “Yes.”

"Why? _Why_ are you helping him?”

"Because I’m the only one that can- alright?” She snapped, whirling over one shoulder and taking a threatening step towards Harry’s subconscious. ”You got us _into_ this. Do you think it was Harry’s _conscious_ mind that said ‘no I think it’s a good idea to make a deal with fucking _Mab_ who’s been going gaga over me since day one’? No, I can _guarantee_ that his conscious mind said ‘holy fuck this is a terrible idea’. But you know what, it was the only option open. The only one that would get him back on his feet— the only one that would help him _survive_ to protect his _offspring_ , so tell me again that you don’t know why I’m doing this. And this time, act like you fucking believe it.” She spat.

He was angry- of course, Harry’s go-to emotion _was_ angry- but he didn’t have any good comebacks, not when she was right, so he settled for glaring and straightened himself up to show how much taller he was than her, base, lizard-brain instincts to puff up when threatened.

Molly couldn’t say she cared. She grabbed another box— what number was it? seven? Halfway there— and dropped it onto her shoulder before lifting it up into the safe. Each one took more effort, and her mental projection of herself was sweating— not because her body was sweating, though it probably was, but as a symbol of exertion… and soon enough, exhaustion. But she couldn’t stop until it was done, or he’d know. And he couldn’t know.

Harry’s subconscious had continued to glower at her as she worked, but once all the boxes were in the safe, there was only one thing left to collect.

"Give it to me, Harry." She said quietly, turning from the safe to hold her hands out to his subconscious.

"He can do whatever he wants, make you hide things— let me keep this. How else is he ever going to remember when it’s time?"

"There won’t be a time to remember." 

"There could be." Id!Harry produced a small black box, no bigger than one a piece of jewelry came in, and held it in one hand, frowning down at it.

"I have to take it, Harry. I have to lock it up with the rest or you’ll show it to him, and he’ll be ready for it. We can’t let that happen." She chewed on her bottom lip, wondering if the gravity she felt pulling down on her heart was just a mental representation of the emotional energy this conversation was making her feel, or if being an accomplice to Harry Dresden’s murder was making her physically ill back in the real world. Or a combination of both.

"I don’t want to die, Molls."

Molly knew that there were no tears on her face, not really, but they slid down her cheeks and fell off her chin none the less. “You stupid idiot…” She breathed, her voice barely above a sigh and moved onto her tip toes to press a tender kiss to his cheek… and took the box from his hands.

“ _No—!_ ” He snarled suddenly, his reaction almost violent, very near to that of a dying man thrashing for the last breath of life, but Molly took two quick steps back and lobbed the box up into the safe with the rest of Harry’s memories of the plan he’d put into motion.

His subconscious made a leap for it, but Molly put herself bodily in his way. Sure, _physically_ he was bigger than her, had height, weight and reach on her— but they weren’t in the physical world. 

"Don’t make me hurt you, Harry." She said, sternly, though her voice softened and she added, "…please."

It probably wasn’t the please that did it. It was probably the realization that she could, in fact, hurt him very badly. His conscious mind was asleep, and his subconscious had been trapped with a psychomancer for more than an hour… if she wanted to hurt him, she _could_. 

Satisfied that she wouldn’t have to do any more damage than she’d already done, Molly turned back to the safe and tugged the door shut, spinning the lock to scramble the code. The whole thing— the door, the lock, the hinges and all, faded back into the darkness that otherwise surrounded them as she stepped back to double check her handiwork.

"Molly?" Id!Harry asked, a certain amount of surprise in his voice. 

"Yeah?"

"What are you doing here?"

She smiled, and didn’t bother trying to tell herself that the tears weren’t real. They were real enough to her.

"You’re dreaming. Go back to sleep, Harry. I’ll be there when you wake up."

Id!Harry looked at her for a minute, as though trying to remember something, then nodded. The spotlight above Molly went out, and she woke from where she’d been sitting beside Harry inside the holy walls of Saint Mary of the Angels… and she wasn’t at all surprised to find her face covered with a combination of sweat and tears.


End file.
